WOLVES IN SILENT CLOAKS

They walk where light forgets to stay,
In borrowed forms of gentle clay,
With softened voice and lowered eye,
They speak as lambs, yet do not sigh
For truth, but for the fold’s embrace—
To wear a harmless, sacred face.

The meadow knows them not at first,
For nothing outward seems accursed;
They quote the dawn, they name the sky,
And teach the lambs to question “why,”
Yet underneath the speech so mild
Is ancient hunger, patient, wild.

The soul that trusts the painted peace,
May find too late that words can cease
To mean what heaven meant them to be,
When form eclipses honesty;
For masks, though carved in holy art,
Still cannot cleanse a ravenous heart.

Yet nature keeps her quiet law—
No disguise escapes her awe;
For every borrowed, false display
Is slowly worn by truth away.
The wolf, though wrapped in sheep’s disguise,
Still answers to the morning skies.

So walk where inward truth is light,
Not only garments dressed in white;
For every form that seems divine
Must answer to a deeper sign—
The inward law no mask can bend,
The soul itself must be its end.

BDD